people, i think i know the very essencial problem of Unity Connect, its the Apply button, its not obvious that you should and can connect to the writer of the message directly , the "Connect" button should be aside the Apply button in job offer postings, not that you first have to click that profile and then look on the profile page for the Connect button on the right side.This is one problem . I needed a while to figure out how to make better use of Connect by just contacting the writer directly via profile->Connect , this works best, that "Apply" button is actually redundant and confusing.
Next hurdle: How do you "Disconnect" from people after you did "Connect" on their profile page ? All i can find intuitive are "Mute", "Pin to Top" and "Report User", geeez....

Yeah, as you see there are multiple little (and not so little also) things to fix/change. I imagine Unity team to make these fixes in real-time as the voices from the community appear... but my dreams are not willing to come true yet ;p

Can someone tell me what the point of closing the original boards was? Why not just keep them open alongside (the vastly inferior) Connect? We're nearly 6 months in and it still seems to be as much of a mess as it was when it 'launched'.

This sucks. I've been using Unity since before version 3.0 and right now is the time I am looking for freelance work but because Connect is broken I'm unable to connect to potential employers (ironic I know). Maybe it's a sign...

connect is kind of useless. i don't think i have yet to get a job through it. thankfully I have a job separately since november so i can't exactly complain but would be nice to fill out my schedule to make extra cash. I had my share of people inviting me repeatedly despite informing them I only take paid work. Gets annoying. i don't know what to really do once this job completes in the next 2 months given how broken connect seems to be.

I could not agree more with @eatsleepindie he nailed everything above!! The new "connect" is absolutely TERRIBLE in that it's extremely hard for me to find a good developer quickly to hire for my projects. I can't quickly browse through the forums to see who's available (also view their portfolio/experience), PM them and start a bunch of fruitful conversations that way. Why would you ever take the forums away? This is not a case of us rebelling against the "new" way, it's actually just that it's much worse from a user friendly and functionality standpoint than the new "connect"....

I will be turning away from using Unity as my go-to resource for finding quality developers, artists and sound engineers for my games.

PS -- I'm looking for a sound/audio engineer to make original music and sounds for our awesome, new mobile game! So if you do this, please PM me =)

However, I am trying to survive somehow so I started a group on Unity Connect where I am trying my best to gather trustworthy developers to present ourselves to potential clients.

If anyone has some work to outsource or just want to join us please take a look at the Professional Outsourcing Companies and Freelancers group: https://connect.unity.com/g/5abbf8b5880c640019af3bb1
Contact me if I can make members of the group more visible to you somehow or in a case of other topics regarding this group.

I've been working as a 3D animator / rigger for more than 12 years now. Since 2013 I got around 50 clients from unity forums. Since Unity Connect became a thing I got exactly 0 clients. It literally destroyed my work as gamedev animator. Thank you, Unity.

I've been working as a 3D animator / rigger for more than 12 years now. Since 2013 I got around 50 clients from unity forums. Since Unity Connect became a thing I got exactly 0 clients. It literally destroyed my work as gamedev animator. Thank you, Unity.

As somebody coming at this from the perspective of just trying to post a small project on connect, I can tell you exactly what you're not finding a lot of work on connect right now... The UX for people posting jobs is absolutely horrible. I've spent many years working as a web developer and I could not figure it out... I can't EVER remember being so confused on a website...

We have a subforum (Unity Connect) right here which is barely being used. What if dozens of users were to post their jobs wanted and offered here in this forum?

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The moment you post a job in the forums a mod will let you know you that you're not allowed to post jobs in the forums and it will be removed. This has been my complaint from day one: that they robbed us of the forum we all used for years and forced us to use this crappy website they call Connect.

As somebody coming at this from the perspective of just trying to post a small project on connect, I can tell you exactly what you're not finding a lot of work on connect right now... The UX for people posting jobs is absolutely horrible.

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THIS. It's like it's trying to be a Twitter, Discord and Upwork at the same time and misses its mark on all three accounts.

I felt fairly betrayed with having been forced into using connect. I don't feel like it's provided me half of the value the jobs forum did, and I see the time coming where the sparse few jobs I do manage to acquire through Connect will see unity taking a portion of my pay. When that happens, I'll feel betrayed again considering the dismal failure Connect seems to be starts taking a portion of my earnings. Every other freelance Unity3d developer I know has shared a similar opinion with me when discussing it.

Bring the forum back already, you messed up big time here, you're embarrassing yourselves.

This is my major complaint as well. Trying out a new system is one thing, but why force it by removing the well-functioning previous system before user testing? Was there any user testing?

I just can't make any sense from it.

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I was buried in work at the time (because the forums worked so well) so I can't say for sure. What I can say is that if there was user testing, there was obviously nowhere near enough of it.

We didn't even need a better-functioning forum, but what we ended up with literally took everything everyone liked about the forums and tossed it. This tends to happen when you bring in a new team and they're dead-set on "making their mark" by turning the system on its head with "bold" ideas.

If anything (I honestly don't think Unity had any business in trying to be a job-fulfillment site) then some new features for the forums would have been more than enough. I can't think of anything that I felt I needed when using the forums, but Connect was certainly non-existent on my list of things I hoped Unity was working on.

Making a site for Unity devs to share their work and collaborate makes sense. Trying to be UpWork when your business is software is like trying to bake and sell cakes while you're working on an oil rig.

Another thing I'm wondering about right now... where are those people that were looking for freelancers on Unity forums? It seems like they are not present on Connect jobs section. So.. where did they go?

Another thing I'm wondering about right now... where are those people that were looking for freelancers on Unity forums? It seems like they are not present on Connect jobs section. So.. where did they go?

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Best guess is they have scattered to various other sites/services like freelancer, upwork, reddit, discord, etc. The irony of Connect is that it fragmented the users that were looking to hire/get hired. I shared two links (in an earlier post on this thread) to subreddits I use to find work and they have been my life-line; without them I would not be working full-time.

I'd also like to add that I met with someone from Unity via Connect back in January. The discussion centered around what changes could be made to Connect to make things work more effectively for freelancers. Every suggestion I made got a very quick response of, "we're working on that."

It is now 5-6 months later and not a single thing they claimed to be working on has been implemented (at least not that I've noticed in my very brief visits since then to see if there are any improvements). Given past experience on these forums I would like to state as clearly as possible that I, of course, do not hold that member of the Unity team personally responsible for anything. I understand they are just trying to do their job; my point has always been not how broken Connect is, but that while it is getting fixed, we need(ed) the old forums back.

All of this runs in parallel to issue tracking that has an almost-laughable number of issues marked as fixed several versions ago and yet users are still posting comments on these issues to correct Unity because they are not fixed at all. I personally deal with 3 of them on a daily basis.*

I'm just biding my time until another Unreal competitor comes along, at which point I will eagerly jump ship. This is not the Unity I signed on with years ago; not by a long shot.

* I started another thread that centered around this (issue tracking) and the lack of DPI scaling which got locked because my points concerning these two issues were apparently just a "rant". I used the word rant in my original post half-jokingly because it wasn't just a rant; I made valid points concerning issues that Unity is continuing to claim as fixed and the simple fact is that they are not fixed at all. I'm sure all those issues being highlighted in green looks great to potential new customers but it doesn't do anything for those of us who are already using the software. Granted this has nothing to do with Connect, but there are obvious parallels between the way Unity is conducting itself regardless of which department/service you look at.

A forum (myBB) specifically for game job posters and seekers to find eachother.

Its literally a few hours old, so if you could check it out, register a profile, post a thread if you are a job seeker, and let me know if you have any feedback.

Once some users have gone on board, I'll promote it more widely on reddit etc.

I'm committed to operating non-commercially as a service to the community (and truthfully, I need it to succeed to help me find and browse available contractors the way I could on the old Unity Job Board )

@eatsleepindie Sadly their "we're-working-on-that" state is permanent since I can remember. It is clearly visible that the whole situation is not their priority. I bet most of us would do all the changes needed on Connect in such a long time-frame. Non of them is working full-time on it, I don't see any other explanation.
I am negatively surprised by Unity team but well... life goes on.

A forum (myBB) specifically for game job posters and seekers to find eachother.

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While I like the idea of opening a new forum, it just isn't going to get the traffic needed for users to find each other. The old unity forum worked because it was official and was easy to find. It had a very specific tie to unity. The new connect I feel is "hidden" in comparison to the old job forum, which I also think is part of the problem.

There are so many job-finding websites out there that it becomes tedious to try and find and post on every one, or even filter ones that are somewhat active. Unity specific work is niche as is. This applies to both people looking for work, and people looking to hire. It becomes its own time-sink for both parties. This is why I don't think just opening yet another forum will necessarily fix everything.
Reddit has been working for me, albeit slowly.

I've just about had it with this late stage commercialism stomping all over the little guys and consumers. And I don't just mean Unity.

While I like the idea of opening a new forum, it just isn't going to get the traffic needed for users to find each other. The old unity forum worked because it was official and was easy to find. It had a very specific tie to unity. The new connect I feel is "hidden" in comparison to the old job forum, which I also think is part of the problem.

There are so many job-finding websites out there that it becomes tedious to try and find and post on every one, or even filter ones that are somewhat active. Unity specific work is niche as is. This applies to both people looking for work, and people looking to hire. It becomes its own time-sink for both parties. This is why I don't think just opening yet another forum will necessarily fix everything.
Reddit has been working for me, albeit slowly.

I've just about had it with this late stage commercialism stomping all over the little guys and consumers. And I don't just mean Unity.

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I've been following this debate since Unity Jobs Forum closed. This is the first and only forum that has been setup to capture the old Unity Jobs board crowd.

I've hired two people from reddit gamedevclassifieds myself.

The problem with Reddit is that:

-You cannot post images in the thread. So if you want to browse a job seeker's portfolio, you have to go to their website.

-Posts are not organised between those offering or looking for jobs, or those on non-commercial revshare projects. It takes a while to trawl through it all.

-You cannot bump your own thread. You have to repost and enter all of your information all over again. Linked to this, no one can post in your thread offering a testimonial.

The end result is that there are very few profiles to browse through as a hirer. I remember browsing through the reddit forums and being amazed at the images and videos of potential contractors. If all you can do is post a job for hire, you are limited by your own requirements, instead of browsing through contractors' work and asking them to replicate something awesome in your own game.

All of these things justify creating a forum specific for indie game job hiring. My research indicates there are no other forums that are specific to this! Right now it would just be nice to have some user testing, to have some profiles posted. Then, promotion to the Reddit crowd and a community can be steadily built.

I appreciate that if it was still with Unity, it would give it all a stamp of approval. I would shut down the forum happily if Unity reinstated the old job board. However, there are advantages as well, such that certain jobs which are engine non-specific (eg. Concept Art, Marketing, Testing, Music etc.) can posted for everyone.

While I like the idea of opening a new forum, it just isn't going to get the traffic needed for users to find each other. The old unity forum worked because it was official and was easy to find. It had a very specific tie to unity. The new connect I feel is "hidden" in comparison to the old job forum, which I also think is part of the problem..

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Personally I try to refrain from assuming failure, especially on someone elses project. We're all complaining we want the forums back and he created one for us while Unity sits back and denies us theirs; I say he should be commended for the effort.

I don't want to just complain and do nothing. That is why I posted a thread on this new forum. My faith in the initiative doesn't matter so much right now, I am just appreciating an effort. Good luck with the gamejobforum.com.

With all this talk about setting up a third-party forum, I haven’t seen any mention (or may have missed) of http://www.unity3dwork.com/ which has been around a long time. Do people not know about it, or is the issue, say, it’s only job postings and not availability also?

With all this talk about setting up a third-party forum, I haven’t seen any mention (or may have missed) of http://www.unity3dwork.com/ which has been around a long time. Do people not know about it, or is the issue, say, it’s only job postings and not availability also?

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Those sites, to my knowledge, just syndicate posts made elsewhere online.

They're also for ongoing positions. There are already a lot of sites like that. They work fine for large, established studios with budgets for permanent staff.

The problem is finding contractors to work on short, paid jobs. Things worth $100-$2000. There was just no good platform for that (well there was... the old job board).

The other thing is - if you're going to setup an independent forum - why limit it to just Unity? There are a lot of things like marketing, writing, concept art which are not engine specific.

I just visited Connect for the first time in quite a while and I immediately felt like it was a social networking platform. Which I can understand (I can't really, but let's pretend) why Unity would want to have a Unity-centric social networking site to have to manage, but I will never understand why the jobs section is tied into it. It's almost like they forced it in there because it could be put under the definition of a "connection." I can understand hobby/rev share work being there because money is not being exchanged, but navigating a social networking platform to get to the part where I can do business doesn't feel very professional; and even if I shrug that notion off, the system just isn't working for a lot of us. Two wrongs do not make a right in this case.

Am I alone here? I just don't want to have Unitwitter greet me when go to find work. Does anyone have a link to a forum post or something similar in which the users were asking for Unity to take the job forums and cram Twitter into them while simultaneously breaking every system they had spent years conditioning us to use?

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